Review: Cyberpunk 2077 is beautiful, but it’s not finished yet | NOW

Cyberpunk 2077 is a game with a visually beautiful and incredibly detailed world, which does not reach the expected level due to several bugs.

Few games have as long a development process as Cyberpunk 2077. Polish developer CD Projekt Red already unveiled the new title in 2012, when PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 were the leading game consoles.

The game is based on the traditional Cyberpunk, a role-playing game that, like Dungeons and Dragons, played with pencil and paper. The first edition, about a dystopian city soon, appeared in the late 1980s.

CD Projekt Red tested for years since Cyberpunk 2077, their biggest game to date. The release date was postponed several times, while the staff had to work overtime systematically. Critics feared a culture of developer burnout.

Full of neon lights

That doesn’t detract from the fact that the endgame looks phenomenal. The fictional city at night is filled with neon lights reflected in pools of water and strange gases escaping from the buildings’ pipes. It’s a grim vision of the future mixed with the aesthetics of the 80s.

It is a city where all the technological advances have gone in the wrong direction. People replace body parts with artificial alternatives to become faster, better, and smarter. Hackers plug directly into their brains, and large multinationals have replaced governments as rulers.

The character can be widely modified.

At the beginning of the game, players create their character named V. This can be visually adjusted down to the genitals, but a backstory and specialization are also chosen. V may be a skilled hacker who once worked for a megacorporation or a gun hero who grew up on the streets.

V starts as a mere mercenary but is seriously injured on a mission and has the ghost of a dead terrorist injected into his brain. What follows is a story that is different from other games. V is an antihero who cares primarily about himself and becomes increasingly entangled in criminal organizations, which means Cyberpunk often feels like a crime movie.

Game systems feel outdated.

V’s abilities are gradually refined as the game progresses, making missions accessible in multiple ways. A room full of enemies can be deactivated with weapons and hacking equipment, for example. Also, sneaking past everyone is often an option as well.

Gamers are no strangers to those kinds of focus options – they form the basis of many other RPGs, like the one on CD Projekt. Warlock titles and, for example, Skyrim. In Cyberpunk, they often feel more skilled and are better portrayed.

But few Cyberpunk try new things. This game takes what we’ve seen with partners for years on a larger scale. It is excellent for anyone who cares about old games but a shame for those hoping for renewal and innovation.

The game is full of bugs.

Plus, there’s a significant pain point above Cyberpunk: The game is rife with bugs and issues. In our gaming sessions, we encountered an extraordinary amount of problems that made the gaming experience difficult, such as invisible characters and crazy floating objects.

Some other insects were more harmless: our protagonist occasionally lost his hair, which made him bald. He also tended to lose his shoes suddenly.

That doesn’t stop your game progress, but it feels incredibly sloppy like you’re watching a movie where the cameraman is on-screen half the time. A patch had to fix many bugs last weekend, but after installation, an error appeared every few minutes.

conclusion

All those mistakes feel tragic. A game that took eight years to develop, which was also postponed multiple times. Managers asked staff to continually work overtime, despite promises not to work again after criticism.

Even after all that, it feels unfinished, Cyberpunk. It is a visually beautiful title with a world that is better explored than many competitors. But if you compare the ending and the playstyle with that splendor, the result is just a good game. Hopefully, the glitches will be further fixed in later updates.